http://sundial.csun.edu/2012/02/csuns-information-technology-battles-fraud-emails/

By Alexandra Riggle

CSUN’s information technology department is in a constant battle to prevent fraudulent messagesfrom reaching the university’s email users.

Among the most recently reported phishing scams is an email that appears to come from CSUN’s information technology department cautioning the recipient that failure to provide his/her user name and password will result in deactivation of the email account, said Chris Olsen, information security officer in CSUN’s information technology department.

Though the email looks official and urgent, containing the Cal State Northridge logo and a subject line that reads, “IMPORTANT NOTICE” a closer inspection reveals spelling and grammatical errors and other signs that challenge its credibility, he said.

“Email scams have been becoming more prevalent in the last two to three years.  We don’t have a direct number of how many people respond to these emails, but we know that some percentage will respond and that some percentage of people on our campus are falling prey,” Olsen said.

Olsen said that college universities are especially desirable targets for scams because university email addresses are generally considered safe and are not blocked by most companies. Once the criminals have hijacked email addresses with a .edu extension, they are virtually guaranteed that the spam or phishing messages they send out will reach their intended targets.

“We probably get 50 fraudulent messages that enter the campus every month that could reach any number of users. It could be 20, 200, or 1,000—we don’t know for sure,” Olsen said.

Although phishing emails can be deceptive, there is a relatively easy way of determining whether an email is legitimate, Olsen said.

“It’s really simple.  Anytime anyone in any message asks you to give up information, 99.999 percent of the time, it’s a scam,” Olsen said. “We’ll never ask students to give up information via email.  If you keep that one rule of thumb in mind, you’ll never fall prey.”

Olsen said CSUN’s information technology department takes steps to block the URL of any external links included phishing emails, but by that point much of the damage has been done.

“The only combating tool for this is awareness,” he said. “No technology can prevent the problem once user names and passwords are released.”

The information technology department offers the following tips to CSUN email users to ensure the security of data:

• Never share your user password with others or write it down in a conspicuous place.
• The University will never request your username, password, or other personal information by email. If you suspect that your email account has been compromised, please visit the website, shouldichangemypassword.com.
• Use the secure connection provided by the Virtual Private Network (VPN) when accessing the University’s wireless network. This secure connection prevents unwanted viewing of your electronic communications.
• Secure your laptop(s) in a locked environment whenever you are away from your computer. Consider using a lock to secure your laptop to a desk.
• Register your computer with a theft recovery service. Visit http://www-admn.csun.edu/police/stop_flyer.pdf to learn more about the CSUN “STOP” program.

CSUN email users who receive a fraudulent message should not respond to it, immediately forward the email to abuse@csun.edu, then delete the email.

China took over as the world’s leading Clair filer after pushing US, Japan to 2nd and 3rd positions respectively without having any trace of India among the first 10. As stated by the Strathclyde Associate Blog, Thompson Reuter’s research report imparts that Government is taking excessive measures for driving innovations in areas like Technology, automobile and pharmaceuticals by providing attractive incentives to Chinese companies in filing patent applications. Domestic patent applications in china boost up to a whopping 73 percent in the year 2010 from less than 52 percent in 2006. But as reported by the legal experts, China had to enhance a great deal in the quality of the patents before it can lead the world in the number of innovations.

Based on Strathclyde Associate Blog, in the terms of overseas patents, Chinese companies are improving their rankings as reported by the World Intellectual Property Office. Published applications of patents by the Chinese government went up by 16.7 percent per year from 2006 to 2010 and published Clair applications are expected to realize 500,000 by 2015. In 2008, china invested around $65.8 billion in research and development. Chinese companies however are not securing their inventions by filing global patents. As reported by the Global innovators analysis, US lead the list with most innovative companies followed by Europe and Japan.

There has been an increase in the annual creation of scientific literature by 80 percent in last 5 years, making china next to US in released scientific papers. As stated on Strathclyde Associate Blog, in keeping with David Brown, President of IP solutions business of Thompson Reuters “intellectual property is the bridge that connects innovation with economic growth”. The report clearly states that world’s second largest economy is evolving from the famous “made in China” image to “designed in China” image.

Many users are now seeing a change in the way that Google’s Keyword Ranking tool is providing competition data.  Instead of the traditional bars to display competitiveness, Google is now using text as the description.

Up until now,this tool used small green bars to display the competitiveness of keywords.  The more green in the bar, the more competitive the term was:

Now the Google tool is only showing text based descriptions of competitiveness – Low, Medium or High:

While the competitiveness has been replaced by text in the web-version, the good news is that Google has maintained the granularity as-to how this ranking was assigned.  In the previous version of the tool, users could download a report to get the exact number that made up the green bar.  This is still the case with the new changes.  So users that require more information can still download the report to a spreadsheet and get the same information:

For any of those that regularly use this competition metric the new competitive labeling is as follows:

• Low – Competitiveness number under .33
• Medium – Competitiveness number between .33 and .66
• High – Competitiveness number over .67

“This column shows the number of advertisers worldwide bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword.”

http://searchengineland.com/google-tweaks-competition-rank-in-adwords-keyword-tool-98510

 With all the emerging smartphones in the market, HTC Wildfire S remains confident in being one of the competitive brands in the market. Despite its low 600MHz processor, the phone still offers a lot of basic functionalities at a very affordable price. It is actually a good starter phone for anyone especially those who are new to Android.

Here are other good reasons for choosing HTC Wildfire S:

1. 5MP Camera. Based on most reviews, its five megapixel camera is one magnet that attracts Wildfire S buyers.  It produces clear photos and also has time capture and face detection capabilities. Shooting indoors and in dim-lighted place is not a problem; the flash automatically sets the tone for images. Users can easily switch from camera to video capture and may choose several imaging effects like grayscale, sepia, negative, and posterize. When accessing a social network, users may readily tag friends included in the photos.

2. Call Quality. Wildfire S has superb call quality. Even at medium setting, the earpiece is loud and voices are transmitted clear and distinct. Users can navigate on the phone even when calling someone by simply turning on the speaker. Flipping the phone when in call can give users clearer voice transmission.

3. Storage Capacity. The phone comes with a 2GB mini SD card but can support up to 32GB. Hence once upgraded, users can store more than a hundred applications, images, and videos. With the initial 2GB and 512mb RAM, users can already save plenty of applications for Android, 500 images at most, and several videos.

4. Android 2.3.  This is another luring feature of the Wildfire S. With its compact design, first time Android users can get the most out of this handset.  A number of free applications can be easily downloaded and installed from the Android Market.

5. HTC Sense. This unique offer from HTC allows users personalize their handsets with free collection of themes, sounds, wallpapers, and even widgets. HTC Sense also gives real time weather condition reports, and easily updates date and time when travelling.

6. Wi-Fi and mobile internet. Even with low processor, internet browsing is not much a problem. Users can easily turn on the handset Wi-Fi and internet capabilities and log on to social networking sites such as Facebook for Android and Twitter (Peep). Users may also opt to sync email contacts to phone, and access and manage several Gmail accounts. 

      Like most handsets, Wildfire S also has some limitations especially in terms of speed and battery. According to some reviews, its battery life, when used roughly, can only last for a maximum of 5-6 hours. Nonetheless, for anyone who wishes to call, take picture and videos, play games, and update their social networks, this small, stylish, and inexpensive Wildfire S can still be rated outstanding.